Author(s): Hans Matthias Schoniger

Linked Author(s): Hans Matthias Schöniger

Keywords: Coastal Aquifer Management; Regional density-dependent groundwater model; Groundwater Indicators; Multiple-Criteria Decision Analysis; Hydrological modelling;

Abstract: Groundwater is the preferred source for drinking water and especially in highly populated coastal zones it is one of the most important resource. However, in order to evaluate the resilience of coastal groundwater management related to climate change, groundwater abstraction, drainage, sea level rise and salinization, new strategies to analyze the results of complex model, geodata and governance structures are needed. With that goal in mind, the present work describes a regional coastal groundwater study by considering an area located in the northwestern part of Germany, the Sandelermöns region, which covers an area of about 1,000 km² as an example. This paper presents an appropriate way to fill the gap between process understanding and water resource management by complex physically based modeling, stakeholder analysis and the development of a dialog platform called CAM (Coastal Aquifer Management). The assessment of the freshwater availability is covered by a numerical 3d density-dependent groundwater flow model (d³f++). It is suitable for coastal lowlands and heterogeneous aquifers and has an open interface to the deterministic hydrological water budget model (PANTA RHEI). Main input data are geological model results, groundwater monitoring data and airborne electromagnetic data sets. For the evaluation and presentation of model results, the present paper describes the development and application of the dialog platform CAM (Coastal Aquifer Management) which uses Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis techniques (MCDA) to strengthen transparency and objectivity in decision-making processes and encourage communication between decision-makers.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/38WC092019-0865

Year: 2019